A Melbourne lawyer has written a book about a landmark Melbourne case. Michelle Schwarz's A Question of Power; The Geoff Clark Case has just been published by Morrie Schwarz's Black Inc which also publishes The Monthly and Quarterly Essay. Judging by the 'top articles this month' panel, there is a huge thirst out [...]

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Update, 20 November 2008: The latest decision is Pegasus Management Holdings S.C.A. v Ernst & Young (a firm) [2008] EWHC 2720 (Ch).  A CMS Cameron McKenna Law Now note may be read here.
Original post: The Law Institute is putting on a lecture at lunchtime on 24 June 2008 by an ex-megafirms lawyer who has [...]

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I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser's excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for the new edition with interest. I got myself a copy the other day. It's good, and there are substantial additions since [...]

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In Ralph Cosentino v MY [2007] VCAT 1319, Member Butcher continued a tradition of statutory interpretation of a little technical provision about when service of statutory notices is effective. That tradition, of the Legal Profession Tribunal and its predecessors, has always troubled me. Though it does not seem to have been cited by counsel,  a [...]

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On Friday, the High Court published a near unanimous judgment in Commonwealth of Australia v Cornwell [2007] HCA 16 on the accrual of a cause of action for negligence in which pure economic loss was claimed. I am yet to read the judgment properly, however it is apparent that a cause of action in negligence [...]

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The technical defence is for me a beautiful fascination. A self-confessed "fact Nazi" and chronology enthusiast, I would nevertheless prefer not to have to charge clients for the kind of obsessive mastery of facts in complicated and long-running failed litigation which is the subject of a professional negligence suit unless absolutely necessary. Summary disposition holds [...]

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The approach of VCAT's Legal Practice List to a nice limitations point is illustrated by Wells's Case, [2006] VCAT 2370 (Senior Member Howell, 16 November 2006), also the subject of this post. What must have been a professional negligence action was commenced just 4 days before the 6th anniversary of the Legal Practitioner ceasing [...]

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